It was the selfie that launched a … 1,000 topless Icelandic women to go topless for … feminism! Well, it may not be 1,000 but it sounds poetic, in a Homeric way.
According to news reports now swirling across the Internet, 17-year-old Adda Smáradóttir, a student at the Commercial College of Iceland in Reykjavik, vented her frustration with what she called the rampant censorship of the female form on Internet giants Instagram and Facebook in a fickle manner.
She then turned to another Internet giant, Twitter to share a single close-up photo of her nipple.
Iceland has since been swamped with topless pics and a mini revolution is under way.
Icelandic media outlet MBL.is reported that as soon as she shared her photo, Smáradóttir received negative comments from two male viewers. She was also informed that sharing the picture could hurt her chances of studying abroad as an exchange student in Costa Rica.
According to the dailydot.com, she said she deleted the tweet but a few months later changed her mind and reposted it, along with the popular feminist hashtag #FreetheNipple.
Dailydot.com notes:
“Supporters of her display of confidence quickly began retweeting, and soon other women began to join in.
The hashtag quickly swept across Icelandic communities on multiple social platforms, embracing the movements themes: embracing equality, celebrating pregnancy, breastfeeding, breast cancer survival, and body positivity.
Even Icelandic Parliament member Björt Ólafsdóttir, a member of Iceland’s Bright Future party, joined the movement, tweeting, “This is to feed children. Shove it up your patriarchy.”
The official #FreetheNipple campaign on Instagram was overjoyed at the movement.
On Twitter, however, users were first surprised and frustrated to discover that although Iceland was hosting a legitimate breakout Twitter trend, there was no way for other users to find and follow it because Twitter did not have “Iceland” listed as a trend-searchable region. The realization spawned a sub-hashtag: #TwitterRecognizeIceland.”
